BROKEN SOLIDARITY THE REFUGEES WELCOME MOVEMENT IN SWEDEN 2015-2020 FANNY MÄKELÄ - DIVA
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Broken Solidarity
The Refugees Welcome Movement in Sweden 2015-2020
Fanny Mäkelä
Two-year Political Science MA program in Global Politics and Societal Change
Dept. of Global Political Studies
Course: Political Science Master's thesis ST631L (30 credits)
Spring/2020
Supervisor: Mikael SpångA warm thank you to Maya, Steve, Mesere, Andreas, Lasse, Ewa,
Antoinette, Emma, Petruska, Alexandra, Tobias, Ulrika, Gemila, Kamal,
Kajsa, Cecilia, Ehab, Sara, Anna, and China.
For your time and generosity,
but especially for your humanity.Abstract This qualitative inquiry explores and describes the Refugees Welcome movement in Sweden from 2015 to 2020 by exploring how people became volunteers, their motivation and experience while at the same time describing events, sceneries, and context with the help of their stories. The empirical material consists of 25 interviews with 20 interviewees, the theoretical perspectives come from the fields of volunteering, civil society, and social movements. A thematic analysis is the method used and the results are presented as part 1 Refugees Welcome to Malmö during the refugee crisis in the fall of 2015, and part 2 with the post-2015 Refugees Welcome initiatives separated by the establishment of checkpoints. The volunteers paint a picture of civil society handling an international issue in a globalized world, and what happens when that globalized world closes. The conclusion is that when the states of Europe introduced checkpoints it drastically changed the context of the opportunities to help refugees, cutting off networks of solidarity from the Mediterranean Sea to Malmö Central Station, and when the local authorities took over the responsibility for the refugee reception they cut off civil society and killing the engagement of the volunteers. Word count: 21337 Keywords: Qualitative Inquiry, Volunteering, Civil Society, Social Movements, Refugees, Refugees Welcome
CONTENT
1 Introduction 2
1.1 Research problem 2
1.2 Purpose 3
1.3 Research questions 3
1.4 Delimitations 4
1.5 Chapter outline 4
2 Theory 5
2.1 The field of volunteering 5
2.2 Civil society 7
2.3 Social movements 8
2.4 Refugees and civil society in Europe 10
3 A qualitative inquiry 11
3.1 The art of interviewing 12
3.2 A thematic analysis 14
3.3 Data collection 17
3.3.1 A presentation of the interviewees 18
4 Analysis 21
4.1 Preface: what we have sworn to defend 21
4.2 Part 1: Refugees Welcome to Malmö in the fall of 2015 22
4.2.1 An opportunity to do good 22
4.2.2 Building bridges by cooperation 26
4.2.3 Prestige, critique and conflict on all fronts 28
4.2.4 Civil society vs. the authorities 31
4.2.5 The nice memories shines the brightest 33
4.3 Checkpoints: ‘for the international right to asylum’ 36
4.4 Part 2. Refugees Welcome in post-2015 Sweden 38
4.4.1 They are not cute puppies anymore 38
5 Conclusion 47
6 Bibliography 51
7 Appendix 54
7.1 Informed Consent refugees welcome initiatives 541 INTRODUCTION
Looking at the refugee reception (or absence of reception) from 2015-2020 systems within states,
and cooperation between states failed to work successfully to receive and protect refugees. States
chose to handle this global issue the old way of sovereignty and territoriality á la Peace of
Westphalia, while civil society stepped in taking on the duties and responsibilities in the absence
of the states. With the help of social media, civil society created networks locally, nationally, and
transnationally enabling moment to moment aid where ‘numbers’ and ‘needs’ shifted hour to
hour in a time of crisis 1 and I call this phenomenon the ‘Refugees Welcome movement’.
1.1 RESEARCH PROBLEM
Against the important role that civil society played in 2015 it is worth studying how this
movement came about and worked and look at what motivated people to become volunteers and
their experiences. It is also worth studying how come the Refugees Welcome movement ended
before it had barely begun, why people are not motivated to volunteer in what I have named the
‘post-2015’ context of a closed Europe. This refugee crisis is a new chapter in the European
history of civil society networking across borders helping and protecting refugees, but compared
to the older chapters like the first and second world war, with the globalization of
communication social media enables anyone anywhere with a smart phone or computer to get in
touch with each other in real-time. And so, it is interesting to look at civil society’s refugee
reception and protection with these new possibilities and challenges and doing so over time.
European states chose to handle this global event by closing the borders, looking at how this
affected this globalized civil society’s abilities for refugee reception and protection is valuable.
This study is relevant to the fields of volunteering, civil society, social movements, global politics,
and societal change. This knowledge in turn can inform states on how to facilitate action and
1 In this study I will use the refugee crisis and not the ‘so called’ refugee crisis fo r two reasons 1) because flyktingkrisen
[the refugee crisis] is the actual name of the event in Swed en 2) to acknowledge that this was an actual crisis for the
refugees, and it was about life and dead. I am not ignorant of th e linguistic debate and the politization of the
wording, I choose the perspective of the refugees, and for them this was not a ‘so called’ crisis.
2cooperate with civil society in cases of crisis, civil society actors can find inspiration and
education in their own work from previous experience, which together may create a better
refugee reception and protection in the future.
1.2 PURPOSE
The purpose of this qualitative inquiry is to explore and describe the Refugees Welcome movement,
when hundreds of thousands of people got together all over Europe as a civil society in 2015 for
the specific cause of aiding, receiving and protecting refugees, and to explore the effects of the
checkpoints creating the post-2015 context. There will be stories and descriptions from other
parts of Europe and small city initiatives across Sweden which I will include, but the main
initiatives of this research are: Refugees Welcome to Malmö that was local and originated the same day
as ‘the crisis’ started in Sweden the fall of 2015; the four post-2015 initiatives Refugees Welcome
Sweden that is an attempt to organize all the small refugees welcome city names into a national
organization for cooperation, co-ordination and a united platform; Refugees Welcome
Borås/Sjuhärad, Refugees Welcome Malmö and Refugees Welcome Housing Sweden that works with
matching Swedish landlords with refugees to be roommates. Sine the Refugees Welcome movement
in Sweden has been rising and disappearing, ever changing its volunteers and civil society
functions it is important to study over time, in this case between 2015-2020.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In investigating differences between 2015 and post-2015, I argue that the change of context is
important to understand. Therefore, I pose questions for both the 2015 and the post-2015
context, but the overarching research question is: how can we understand the quick rise and
demise of the Refugees Welcome movement in Sweden? Operationalized with the questions: why did
hundreds of thousands of volunteers go together as a civil society receiving and protecting
refugees in 2015? How did they do it? What are the motivations, experiences, and reflections of
the volunteers? The questions regarding post-2015 is how does the movement look like today
3regarding civil society functions? What does the engagement look like? What are the volunteers
motivations and experiences? And what are their reflections of the post-2015 context?
1.4 DELIMITATIONS
This study cannot speak for volunteers or initiatives in Sweden, which is not a part of the inquiry,
and hence should not be used to generalize. There literature on volunteering, civil society, and
social movements are vast, but due to prioritization there will not be a classic literature review,
instead only the selected theoretical frameworks which will be used are presented in favour of the
analysis.
1.5 CHAPTER OUTLINE
In chapter 2 there will be theoretical frameworks on volunteering, civil society, and social
movements, in chapter 3 I will present my qualitative design with method of collecting data and
thematic analysis. Chapter 4 contains the analysis, part 1 presenting the themes the fall of 2015
Refugees Welcome to Malmö, and part 2 the post-2015 Refugees Welcome initiatives. The study ends
with the conclusion as chapter 5, bibliography chapter 6 and appendix chapter 7.
42 THEORY
This chapter does not contain a traditional literature review due to my decision to prioritize space
for the analysis. Reading through the literature in the academic fields of volunteering, civil
society, and social movements I have made some selections for further reading in respective field,
and the chapter ends with some suggestions or literature that is interesting in direct relation to
this study.
2.1 THE FIELD OF VOLUNTEERING
The Refugees Welcome movement is a network of non-governmental organizations, associations and
autonomous initiatives that are initiated and organized by volunteers, so you can say that the
volunteers are the movement. That is why I have turned to the literature on volunteering.
To get a good overview of this field read Volunteering and Society in the 21 st Century written by
Rochester et al. (2012). When trying to define volunteering2. and a volunteer3 you find numerous
examples of typologies, models, checklists, and principles in the literature. The definition that I
have decided upon is made by Wilson, ”volunteering is any activity in which time is given freely
2
Some of them are made by Smith (2000), Dingle (2001), Ro chester and Hutchison (2002), Bills (1993), Hankinson
and Rochester (2005), Cnaan et al. (1996) and Rochester et al. (2012) and Kearney (2001).
3
There is th e episodic volunteers that in cludes the employer-supported volunteers, older volunteers, transitional
volunteers, the professional volunteer, unemployed volunteers, (Macduff, 2005), transnational volunteers, virtual
volunteer (Evans & Saxton, 2005, Cravens, 2006), ‘classic’ and ‘new’ (Hustdinx, 2001) and the disaster volunteers
(Sharon, 2004) among others. I find that many d efinitions have one thing in common, a basic distin ction betw een
the ‘long-term’ and the ‘short-term’ volunteer (Danson, 2003). Unfo rtunately, there is not within the scope of this
study to explore the typology of the disaster volunteer, the phenomenon when very large numbers of spontaneous and
unaffiliated volunteers comes together in response or tragic events or major disasters of an extraordinary kind (see
Sharon, 2004).
5to benefit another person, group or cause” (2000, p. 215), hence focus lies on the act itself without
considering the motives to volunteer or whether or not it benefits the volunteer in question.
Therefore, I find it logical to define a volunteer as a person that do this activity and therefore it is
this understanding that is used in this study.
There are three paradigms on volunteering which may overlap that gives us a broad
perspective on volunteering, these are the dominant or ‘non-profit’ paradigm, volunteering as serious
leisure (Stebbins and Graham, 2004), and the civil society or activist paradigm (Lyons et al 1998). In
the dominant or ‘non-profit’ paradigm the opportunity for volunteering is provided by large
organizations with paid staff and a formal structure, usually charities where volunteers are ‘un
paid help’ with pre-defined roles (Rochester et al. (2012, p. 11-14). The motivation to volunteer is
fundamentally altruistic, and one’s time is a ‘gift’ providing support or care to people in need,
such as children, elderly, people with disabilities or people living in poverty (ibid.). Rochester et
al. discuss two ‘new’ perspectives, namely volunteering as serious leisure and the civil society or activist
paradigm. With the perspective on volunteering as serious leisure the motivation is presumed to
be an enthusiasm for a specific activity and acquiring the skills and knowledge to exercise it
(ibid.). This is a way to spend some free time to express oneself in the fields of art, culture or
sports and perhaps substitute for a ‘mundane’ everyday life (ibid.). The civil society or activist
paradigm is characterized as ‘horizontal’ and the motivation is mutual aid and self-help working
together to address common problems and meet shared needs, “their activities extend beyond
social welfare to other areas of public policy such as transport, town planning and the
environment (ibid. p. 12 ). The organizational context is ‘grass-roots associations’ where “the role
to be played by the member activist in this kind of organisation ‘cannot be defined in advance’
but ‘will be developed over time in the light of experience, personal growth and reflection’”
(ibid.).
When it comes to the question of what motivates people to volunteer there are an immense
number of studies looking for the golden answer, if we know what motivates people we can
design the recruitment process to increase the number of people who volunteer, attract the exact
volunteer that we desire and make them stay. Here we also find an amount of lists, typologies,
models and principles and needs as well, and you can divide the literature into basic psychological
needs that we all share, or that there are as many motivations as there are volunteers.
The focus in this field has been defining ‘what is’ and ‘motivation’ without much interest in
actual volunteers, and the two main methods are surveys and desk work trying to understand
complex human beings in a complex social setting. I believe that there is a need to look beyond
the dominant paradigm of quantitative methodology which gives us ‘broad and shallow’
6knowledge, to an epistemological recognition that ‘few and deep’ can give us valuable knowledge
and understanding using qualitative methodology. Three things that is shining with its absence is
how people become volunteers, experiences of being a volunteer, and context, I will cover these white
spots of knowledge in this study and I will ask volunteers myself with a qualitative inquiry.
2.2 CIVIL SOCIETY
Researching the Refugees Welcome movement, it felt natural turning to the academic field of civil
society for guidance and ended up in the body of knowledge on civil society and peacebuilding,
which I find valuable in this polarized politicized issue of refugees. Unlike the field on
volunteering, we find more qualitative research such as the two anthologies Civil Society and
Peacebuilding: A critical assessment (Paffenholts, 2010) and People Building Peace II: Successful Stories of
Civil Society (van Tongeren et al. 2005) that gives a deep and broad insight of civil society action in
Guatemala, Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, UN and civil society interactions, effective regional
networks and partnerships, and theory about defining civil society. Trying to define what civil
society is and what it does has gone on for centuries from John Locke to Charles de Montesquieu
to Karl Marx to Antonio Gramsci. Theoretically I have overlooked normative frameworks and
searched for the functions of civil society since I am exploring what the Refugees Welcome
movement do, and not what it ought to do. The theoretical framework that will be used is
Christoph Spurk’s seven functions of civil society which enables an in-depth analysis and the
development of a detailed understanding of civil societies role in political, social and development
processes (Spurk, 2010, p. 24). For accuracy, these seven functions are cited (ibid. p 24 –25) and
are as follows:
1. Protection of citizens. This basic function of civil society is protecting lives, freedom, and
poverty against attacks and despotism by state and other authorities.
2. Monitoring for accountability. This function consists of monitoring the activities of central
powers, state apparatuses, and government. This is also a way to control central
authorities and hold them to account. Monitoring can refer to human rights, public
spending, corruption, and primary school enrolment.
3. Advocacy and public communication. An important task of civil society is its ability to
articulate interests – especially of marginalized groups – and to create channels of
communication in order to bring them to the public agenda, thereby raising public
awareness and facilitating debate.
4. Socialization. With its rich associational life, civil society contributes to the formation and
practice of democratic attitudes among citizens. People learn to develop tolerance,
7mutual trust, and the ability to compromise through democratic procedures. Thus,
democracy is ensured not only by legal institutions but also by citizens’ habits.
5. Building community. Engagement and participation in voluntary associations also has the
potential to strengthen bonds among citizens, building social capital. In cases where
associations include members from other ethnic and social groups, it also bridges
societal cleavages and contributes to social cohesion.
6. Intermediation and facilitation between citizens and state. Civil society and its organizations fulfil
the role of balancing the power of, and negotiating with, the state at different levels
(local, regional, national). It establishes diverse relations (communications, negotiation,
control) among various interest groups or between independent institutions and the
state.
7. Service delivery. The direct provision of services to citizens is an important activity of civil
society associations, such as self-help groups. Especially in cases where the state is weak,
it becomes essential to provide shelter, health, and education. Although organizations
executing civil society functions also provide services to members and clients, the
functional model centres on political functions and objectives – in contrast to the third
sector debate that focuses on services and economic objectives. Thus, service delivery as
a function is considered an entry point for other civil society functions, but this should be
based on a careful assessment of whether the specific service is indeed a good entry
point for those objectives.
In this theoretical framework civil society consists of citizens helping citizens, and even though
they may have different privileges and oppressions, they share a national identity, equality in civil
rights (which includes the right to stay and live in the country) and a common government.
Therefore, it is interesting to use in this study of citizens helping refugees who are from other
countries, with other languages, other cultures, and religions. You could even say that it is ‘us’
helping ‘the other’.
2.3 SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Looking at the Refugees Welcome Movement in 2015 civil society created networks all over Europe,
and so I got curious to explore if it could be classified as a social movement. Della Porta and
Diani bring together several strands of social movements in their Social Movements: An Introduction
(2006) and their definition is widely used. I have made the decision to use their definition of
social movements in this study directly adding it to this body of knowledge in a globalized milieu.
According to della Porta and Diani:
... social movements are a distinct social process, consisting of the mechanisms through
which actors engaged in collective action: are involved in conflictual relations with clearly
8identified opponents; are linked by dense informal networks; shade a distinct collective identity
(2006, p. 20) [italics added].
Conflictual collective action mean that social movement actors are engaged in political and/or cultural
conflicts to promote or oppose social change where there are oppositional relationships between
actors who seek control of the same stake (like political, economic or cultural power), and in the
process trying damaging the interest of the other actor (della Porta and Diani, 2006, p. 21). In
their definition, addressing collective problems like producing public goods or expressing support
for moral values and principles does not automatically make it a social movement action, it
“requires the identification of targets for collective efforts, specifically articulated in social or
political terms” (ibid.). Dense informal networks differentiate social movements processes from other
instances of collective action usually coordinated within the boundaries of organizations:
A social movement process is in place to the extent that both individual and organized
actors, while keeping their autonomy and independence, engage in sustained exchanges of
resources in pursuit of common goals. No single organized actor, no matter how powerful,
can claim to represent a movement as a whole (ibid.).
A social movement process is only in place when collective identities develop that goes beyond a
sum of specific events or initiatives even though ‘the membership criteria’ may be extremely
unstable and depending on mutual recognition between actors (della Porta and Diani, 2006, p.
21–23). The collective identity creates a connectedness:
It brings with it a sense of common purpose and shared commitment to a cause, which
enables single activists and/or organizations to regard themselves as inextricably linked to
other actors, not necessarily identical but surely compatible, in a broader collective
mobilization (ibid. p. 21).
In addition to social movements they identify what they call ‘consensus movements’ which share
the dynamic of actors sharing solidarity and interpretation of the world enabling them to link
specific acts and events in a longer time perspective (della Porta and Diani, 2006, p. 22–23). What
separates them is that a sustained collective action lacks a conflictual element and identified
specific adversaries not trying to redistribute power nor making alterations social structures,
instead focusing on service delivery, self-help, and community empowerment (ibid.). A social
movement dynamic is going on when single events are perceived as parts in a longer-lasting
action and those engaged feel linked to each other by ties of solidarity and communion with
protagonists of other mobilizations (ibid. p. 23–24). The common identity should remain even
when events have come to an end, this makes it easier to revival a mobilization in the future,
9“movements often oscillates between brief phases of intense public activity and long ‘latent’
periods” (ibid). Della Porta and Diani differs other informal networks of collective actions like
‘coalitions’ where the collective actors are connected with each other in terms of alliances, the
networks between the actors mobilizing for a common goal take a purely contingent and
instrumental nature from a social movement since they lack the dynamic of a collective identity
(ibid). A social movement is a fluid phenomenon and individual participation is a sense of being
involves in a collective endeavour without automatically belong to a specific organization,
“strictly speaking, social movements do not have members, but participants (ibid. p. 26). The new
wave of global justice collective mobilization has shown that social movement politics still at a
large extent is politics in the streets (ibid. p. 29).
2.4 REFUGEES AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN EUROPE
This study is aligned with the academic fields of volunteering, civil society and social movements,
but going into that literature will not give you any further understanding of the puzzle where this
study is but a little piece. Hence, here are some more pieces for further reading: Solidarity in
Diversity: Activism as a Pathway of Migrant Emplacement in Malmö (Hansen, 2019), Refugee Protection and
Civil Society in Europe (Feiscmidt et al. 2019), Conviviality at the Crossroads: The Poetics and Politics of
Everyday Encounters (Hemer et al. 2020), The Refugee Reception Crisis in Europe: Polarized Opinions and
Mobilizations (Rea et al. 2019), Solidarity Mobilizations in the ‘Refugee Crisis’: Contentious Moves (della
Porta, 2018) and Migration, Civil Society and Global Governance (Schierup et al. 2019).
103 A QUALITATIVE INQUIRY
When we choose our methodology, our epistemology and ontology decide for us the path where
we believe we can find the answers to our questions, it also affects how we value and criticize
different kinds of research. My own body of knowledge about qualitative research and
methodology is a puzzle that has built up over the years reading, hearing and learning and it is
hard to know exactly which author or teacher who gave me which piece of this puzzle. What I do
know is that my curiosity, ‘epistemological and ontological conviction’ and my own research has
been much influenced by reading John W. Creswell, and so my research design4 has been guided
by his works Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches (2014) and
Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (2013).
Qualitative research is appropriate to use when a problem or issue needs to be explored, like
studying a population or a group, because there is a need to identify variables that cannot easily
be measured, or to hear silenced voices (ibid. p.47-48). The volunteers in the Refugees Welcome
movement in Sweden I believe cannot be classified as either a population nor a group – they
engage in different time/space, very few know each other, they do not share a special culture,
political affiliation, religion or education – hence, in order to find out who these people are and
their similarities and differences there is a need for exploration. According to Creswell we should
use qualitative research because we need a detailed and complex understanding of the issue and
this details can only be found by talking directly with people and allowing them to tell their story
unencumbered of what we have read in the literature or what we expect to find (ibid.). When it
comes to understanding why people volunteer to help refugees, their experiences and thoughts;
how the Refugees Welcome movement started and has evolved in Sweden 2015-2020; what civil
society functions it has had and how it has developed makes a complex fabric best answered by
asking the people involved that is the movement.
I could ask volunteers using a quantitative method like a survey which will give me a
statistical result, but finding 1000 volunteers to answer it would take a long time in this scene
where one interviewee gives you one name and that person gives you another, therefore the
snowball-sampling method for data collection has been used. Clearly, volunteers are human
beings and human beings are complex, and so is our social context, for example when asked the
4My research design shares many traits with ethnograph y, grounded theory, and narrative design but with important
differences.
11question ‘what is your motivation’ my interviewees take time to search in their childhood, reflect
upon personality traits, values and experiences. In a survey I would have to give numerous
predetermined and static options based on what I think is reasons for volunteering with refugees
from the literature and this would give me limited and possibly misleading data. Creswell states
that we should use qualitative research when quantitative research measures or statistical analysis
simply do not fit the problem (ibid) and trying to make a quantitative study fit the purpose of this
study does not work very well. Qualitative research should be used when we want to understand
the settings or context in which the participants in a study address a problem or issue (ibid.)
which fits with the complexity of both the volunteers and the rise, demise and rebirth of the
Refugees Welcome movement in Sweden. This knowledge can only be gathered methodologically by
interviews in confidence between the researcher and the participant. One characteristic of
qualitative research is a holistic approach looking at the whole picture and not particular parts
(Hammond & Wellington, 2013, p. 168) and researchers try to build a complex picture of the
problem not bound by tight cause-and-effect relationship among factors but rather distinguishing
complex interactions of factors in any situation (Creswell, 2013, p. 47).
Writing academically is a craft that we are trained to master, but I use the style that goes
with a qualitative tradition of writing in a literary or flexible style without the restrictions of
formal academic structures of writing (ibid.). Reviewing the rationales for conducting a qualitative
inquiry I believe that my choice to do so is accurate since the answers to my questions cannot be
found in the literature, found with quantitative methodology or secondary sources.
3.1 THE ART OF INTERVIEWING
When it comes to conducting in-depth interviews my perspective and method comes from peace
research since I started to conduct interviews within Peace and Conflict Studies. Brounéus 5
describes the benefits of the in-depth interviews like this:
... in-depth interviewing offers a unique method and source of information since it provides
research with depth, detail and perspective on a certain research question, and at a certain
moment in time. In contrast to secondary sources and survey research, the in-depth
interview gives the researcher a first-hand account of the research of the question at hand [...]
5In her ch apter ‘In-dept Interviewing: The p ro cess, skill and ethics of interviews in peace research’ in Understanding
Peace Research: Methods and Challenges (2011) she describes step by step from planning to publishing.
12In addition, the interviews can give colour and warmth to cold facts and closeness to distant
happenings (2011, p. 131).
My participants are interviewed in their role and commitment as volunteers under the ‘Refugees
Welcome umbrella’, the only requirement for participating is to be over age and have agency:
Agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own
decisions based on an awareness of their situation and the range of responses open to them;
agency is sometimes referred to as voluntarism (Hammond & Wellington, 2013, p. 161).
This is important because I need to be sure that the interviewees understand the informed
consent6, that everything is voluntary and that I can trust that they will be able to make informed
decisions of what to say and what not to say. This is also a way for me to take responsibility
towards the research community, the interviewees and for myself. Choosing a “comfortable and
encouraging atmosphere in which the interviewee feels respected and safe is important both for
obtaining useful information and for conducting ethical research” (Brounéus 2011, p. 136), I have
tried to do so by letting the interviewees decide time and place at their convenience, but also to
lessen the power imbalance. Together we read and sign the informed consent and it is important
to ask if they have any questions or if anything is unclear. Then they get to choose if they want to
be audiotaped and if they want to keep their first name for the analysis or if they want an alias of
their choice. An essential part of the ethics of interviewing is to anonymize our participants but I
have let them decide and interestingly seventeen out of twenty decided to use their first name. To
make the interview a pleasant experience and to get a rich and deep material I practice and
cultivate the art of reflective listening:
Reflective listening involves using active non-verbal (nodding, ‘hmm’-ing) and verbal (‘tell
me more...’) listening techniques, but the core skills of reflective listening are the following:
reflecting fact, reflecting emotion, questioning on fact, and questioning on emotion [...]
These core skills of reflective listening involve exploring and understanding the speaker’s
perspective [...] If researchers are skilful listeners they will receive more and better quality
information from the interviewee, understand that information better and, as a result, have
an improved basis for analyzing the research question at hand (Brounéus 2011, p. 137).
I use a semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions. Before we start the interview,
I tell my participants that this will not be a conversation since I will be silent (with nodding and
‘mm’-ing) so that the interviewees have space for their answer. But also, in order for me not to
affect their associations and choice of words (it is so easy to contaminate). Telling them this has
been positive for them and make them relaxed, probably because it gives the interview ‘rules’ that
66 See Appendix.
13they do not have to quick answers and do not need to be afraid of silence. Unfortunately, the
interviews about Refugees Welcome to Malmö are not as rich with emotions and self-reflections as the
post-2015 interviews since I have developed my skills over the years.
3.2 A THEMATIC ANALYSIS
People who are unfamiliar with qualitative research may see it as scientifically unpredictable or
unreliable, and there is an ongoing debate within qualitative research if thematic analysis is a
method of its own and if so, how is it done. Braun and Clarke discuss these views and outline the
theory, application, and evaluation of thematic analysis in Using thematic analysis in psychology (2006).
They argue that it should be seen a foundational method within qualitative research and that
thematic analysis is the first method of analysis that all qualitative researcher should learn since it
provides core skills useful for conducting other forms of qualitative analysis (Braun & Clarke,
2006, p. 78). A “thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns
(themes) within data. It minimally organizes and describes your data set in (rich) detail” (ibid. p.
79) and “through its theoretical freedom, thematic analysis provides a flexible and useful research
tool, which can potentially provide a rich and detailed, yet complex, account of data” (ibid. p. 78).
In order to look at the development of the Refugees Welcome movement before and after the
checkpoints I will analyze the post-2015 material the same way as I did with Refugees Welcome to
Malmö. I followed Braun and Clarkes guide to conduct a thematic analysis, every step has a
detailed description and ends with a 15-point checklist of criteria for a good thematic analysis and
how to avoid potential pitfalls. Before moving to these steps, for you to understand my decisions
and how I have conducted my thematic analysis, I will outline some of the words that is used and
how they are defined in this guide:
A theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research questions,
they represent some level of patterned meaning within the data set; data corpus refers to all
data collected for a research project; data set refers to all the data from the corpus that are
being used for analysis; data item is used to refer to each individual piece of data collected,
which together make up the data set or corpus; data extract refers to an individual coded
chunk of data, which has been identified within, and extracted from, a data item. There will
be many of these, taken from throughout the entire data set, and only a selection of these
extracts will feature in the final analysis; codes identify a feature of the data (semantic content
or latent) that appears interesting to the analyst, and refers to ‘the most basic segment or
element, of the raw data (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p. 79, 82, 88).
14In the thematic analysis I have followed these steps: 1) Familiarizing yourself with your data,
transcribing and re-reding the data 2) Generating initial codes, coding interesting features of the
data in a systematic fashion across the entire data set 3) Searching for themes, collating codes into
potential themes, gathering all data relevant to each theme 4) Reviewing themes, checking if the
themes work in relation to the coded extracts and the entire data set 5) Define and naming
themes, refine the specifics of each theme 6) Producing the report, final analysis of selected
extracts relating to research questions, literature and the production of a scholarly report of the
analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p. 87). Compared with other methods for analysis the thematic
analysis was relatively quick and easy to learn (with these guidelines) which is beneficial in order
to make it correctly and properly from the beginning to the end.
In my bachelor’s thesis ‘I had to do something’ Refugees Welcome to Malmö and the stories of
the volunteers regarding the refugee crisis during the fall of 20157 (Mäkelä, 2016) I used my
empirical material of 13 interviews with 10 interviewees that together amount to 16 hours of raw
data. When it comes to the post-2015 Refugees Welcome-initiatives8 I have conducted 12 interviews
with 10 volunteers during the years 2018, 2019 and 2020 which sum up to 19 hours of raw
material. Thus, my data corpus entails 20 interviewees, individual interviews sums up to 25
occasions and 35 hours of raw interview material. I have decided to have of four categories of
data sets 1) the individual interviewees, 2) the individual interviews, 3) the fall of 2015 and 4)
post-2015. I have collected data items from all the data sets (my whole data corpus) and I have
used codes developed from my research questions for my selection of extracts (quotes) that is
presented as themes in the analysis. I believe it is important to highlight that my data corpus entails
20 interviewees, individual interviews sums up to 25 occasions and 35 hours of raw interview material hence, the
old interviews and themes from Refugees Welcome to Malmö is re-analysed together with the new data
and new theoretical frameworks.
I am doing a mix of ‘theoretical’ thematic analysis and an ‘inductive’ thematic analysis,
which may be important to note. The differences are that in an inductive thematic analysis the
specific research questions evolves during the coding process without paying attention to themes
identified in previous research, while a ‘theoretical’ thematic analysis is more driven by the
7
Selected parts from my published bach elor’s th esis ”I had to do something” Refugees Welcome to Malmö and the
stories of the volunteers regarding the refugee crisis during the fall of 2015’ (Mäkelä, 2016) is published in the
ch apter “‘Only Volunteers’? Personal Motivations and Political Ambiguities within Refugees Welcome to Malmö
civil Initiative” in Refugee Reception and Civil Society in Europe (2019) co-authored with Professor Maja Povrz anović
Frykman.
8
Selected parts from four of my interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019 have b ecome the chapter n amed ‘Post-2015
Refugees W elcome Initiatives in Sweden: Cosmopolitan Underpinnings’ in Conviviality at the Crossroads: the poetics and
politics of everyday encounters (2020), co-authored with Professor Maja Povrzanović Frykman.
15researcher’s theoretical interest on the issue, coding for a specific research question and as such is
more explicitly analyst-driven (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p. 83-84). My codes are generated from
my research questions, it is analyst-driven but without paying attention to themes identified in
previous research. I do not want my data to be ‘fitted into’ existing theory or use a specific pair of
‘theoretical glasses’ to tell me what to look for – my codes are exploratory in order to let my
interviewees tell us how things are and what is important to know.
163.3 DATA COLLECTION
I would like to start by pointing out that this study would not have been possible without the
interviewees generosity sharing their experiences, reflections, and feelings. The data collection for
Refugees Welcome to Malmö started with a message to Petruska, the administrator of their Facebook
group, asking if she could publish my ‘advertisement for interviewees’. Since she was a member
of ‘the leadership’ she became an important gatekeeper, on her own initiative she created a
chatgroup ‘throwing in people’ as to help me find participants, and for people to spread the word
if someone else would be interested. Hence, my gatekeeper turned out to be a good facilitator for
the snowball-sampling. A nice surprise was that several people reached out to me due to the
advertisement because they found my research important and they wanted to tell their story.
For the post-2015 interviews I sent one request to Refugees Welcome Sweden’s official email
address, and I did the same to Refugees Welcome Housing Sweden’s official email address both found
on their webpages. The chairpersons of both initiatives accepted and from there on it was
snowball-sampling. As with the interviewees about 2015, it has been a lovely surprise that so
many people wanted to participate and share their experiences, thoughts and feelings. All
interviewees have answered questions about age, higher education, foreign background,
employment, previous experience of volunteering and which political party they voted for in the
2014 parliamentary election for the 2015 interviewees, and the 2018 parliamentary election for
the post-2015 interviewees. Everyone had the option to answer ‘private’ on every question, and
the ones who chose an alias thought it more important to answer the questions openly to
contribute to the research than keeping their name. When asking the interviewees who chose to
keep their name about the reason for doing so, one half does not really care, and the other half
emphasize that keeping their name is important to them since they see it as a political statement,
or as a humanitarian declaration. Regardless of the name, the fact that their thoughts and
experiences will be documented have been something positive for my interviewees, since they are
very passionate about their work, and it gives them an opportunity to be honest about our society
freely knowing that people will read it. I have been very cautious to conduct my interviews in the
same way over the years and use the same material (informed consent, table-questions, and
interview guide) so that I can see changes and make comparisons over time. The only thing that I
have changed is that I removed the questions ‘how would you define a volunteer’ and ‘how
would you define civil society’ since my 2015 volunteers had a hard time answering them.
The only secondary material for the analysis is transcriptions of a speech made by the
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven on the 6th of September 2015 and a press conference on
17the 24 th of November when the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and Vice Prime Minister
Åsa Romson, selected for important context.
3.3.1 A PRESENTATION OF THE INTERVIEWEES
I have collected data on age, occupation, higher education, ethnic background, time living in
Malmö/Sweden, previous experience of voluntary work, membership in any organization and
their vote for parliament in 2014 for the Refugees Welcome to Malmö volunteers and in 2018 for the
post-2015 refugees welcome volunteers. I have not used this information in the analysis, but it may
be of value while engaging with the analysis, comparing similarities and differences with other
studies or among the volunteers within this study.
183.3.1.1 Table of participants Refugees Welcome to Malmö 2015
Table 1.1 Interviewees by age, profession, higher education, foreign background and time of living in Malmö.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alias* Age Occupation University education Foreign background Time living in Malmö
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alexandra 31 Violinist Yes No Entire life
Andreas 31 Nurse Yes Yes, Thai mother 1 year, 9 years in Lund
Antoinette 54 Translator Yes Yes, Germany 4 years
Emma 22 Student Yes No 1,5 years
Ewa 47 Secondary teacher Yes No Living in the region
Lasse 62 Sports consultant Yes No 11 years
Maya 25 Accommodation for Yes Yes, Spanish father 3,5 years
unaccompanied minors
Mesere 38 Assistant nurse No Yes, Macedonia 12-15 years
Petruska 57 Project leader Yes No Entire life
Steve 68 Retired Some courses Yes, USA 30 year
* The names used in this study were chosen by the participants; some are their real names.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Source: Mäkelä (2016) ’I had to do something’ Refugees Welcome to Malmö and the stories of the volunteers regarding the refugee
crisis during the fall of 2015.
Table 1.2 Interviewees by former experience of volunteering, membership in or financially support of organisations, political
orientation (how they voted in Swedish parliamentary elections in 2014).
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alias* Previous experience of voluntary work Membership in organizations Vote for parliament 2014
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alexandra In gaming associations Gaming associations, Refugees Welcome to Malmö The Green Party
Andreas Within the church and the Red Cross Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross Social Democratic Party
Antoinette None None No right to vote
Emma On Lesbos in 2015, student associations Red Cross, Refugees Welcome to Malmö The Moderate Party
Ewa None Red Cross, Amnesty, Doctors Without Borders The Feminist Initiative
Lasse Several decades in sports organizations Nature Conservation, Red Cross The Green Party
Maya None Doctors Without Borders The Left Party
Mesere In Sisters for Sisters Sisters for Sisters, Refugees Welcome to Malmö Blank
Petruska Parents’ cooperatives, different boards Greenpeace, Save the Children, project organizations The Liberal Party
Steve Mostly activism The Left Party, HBTQ rights associations, Amnesty The Left Party
* The names used in this study were chosen by the participants; some are their real names.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Source: Mäkelä (2016) ’I had to do something’ Refugees Welcome to Malmö and the stories of the volunteers regarding the refugee crisis
during the fall of 2015.
193.3.1.2 Table of participants post-2015 Refugees Welcome initiatives
Table 2.1 Interviewees by age, profession, higher education, foreign background and time of living in Malmö.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alias* Age Occupation University education Foreign background Time living in Malmö
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Anna 32 Librarian Yes No All her life
Cecilia 27 Accommodation for Yes No 4 years
unaccompanied minors
China 56 Movie producer Yes Yes, Italian mother Born in Lund
Ehab 29 Master’s student Yes Yes, Syria 1 year
Gemila 33 Head of accommodations for Yes Yes, Polish mother and 29 years
unaccompanied minors Iraqi father
Kajsa 27 Project leader Yes No 6 years
Kamal 30 Teacher Yes Yes, Lebanon Living in Borås
Sara 28 Insurance adviser Yes No 4,5 years
Tobias 47 Host family coordinator Yes Yes, Danish 30 years
Ulrika 44 Disability pension Yes No 44 years
* The names used in this study were chosen by the participants; some are their real names.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Source: Mäkelä (2017-2020)
Table 2.2 Interviewees by former experience of volunteering, membership in or financially support of organisations, political
orientation (how they voted in Swedish parliamentary elections in 2018).
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alias* Previous experience of voluntary work Membership in organizations Vote for parliament 2018
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Anna Very little The Swedish Outdoor Association, the Swedish Society The Social Democrats
for Nature Conservation and the Red Cross
Cecilia National chairperson for Tamam Tamam and RWHS* Private
China Much experience, mostly within culture Amnesty, Green Peace, United Rescue Aid among others Private
Ehab The Salvation Army, the Swedish church No Not eligible yet
Gemila The Red Cross (women’s shelter) RWS*, Doctors Without Borders The Left party
Kajsa FARR, No one is illegal, The asylum group The Swedish Peace- and Arbitration Society, Amnesty The Left Party
Kamal In Glöm aldrig William Petzäll foundation RWS*, FARR* The Green Party
Sara Scouts, Bergatrollen, Counter Point, Amnesty, World Animal Protection, RWHS*, RWS* The Left party
homework support, ‘schysst’ initiative
Tobias Yes, different engagements FARR*, RWS* The Left Party
Ulrika Counterpoint Greenpeace, several culture associations Private
* The names used in this study were chosen by the participants; some are their real names.
*Refugees Welcome Housing Sweden
*Refugees Welcome Sverige (Sweden)
*Flyktinggruppernas Riksråd
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Source: Mäkelä (2017-2020)
204 ANALYSIS
This analysis consists of two parts, part one is about the Refugees Welcome to Malmö civil society
initiative during the refugee crisis in 2015, and part two is the post-2015 Refugees Welcome civil
society initiatives 9 . The ‘Preface: what we have sworn to defend’ and middle section
‘Checkpoints: for the international right to asylum’ are added in order to get a better
understanding of the shifting context changing opportunities and challenges in the reception and
protection of refugees.
4.1 PREFACE: WHAT WE HAVE SWORN TO DEFEND
On the 6 th of September 2015, the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven stands on a small stage
at with a “Refugees Welcome” banner behind him. In the pouring rain, he starts to speak to the
audience:
Millions of people are on the run, from war and horrifying terror. These are people like you and
me, with their wishes and their dreams about life. But they are being forced to flee from bombings
with their children in their arms. And on their way, they risk their lives in cargo spaces,
containers, and in completely unseaworthy boats, and not everybody makes it [...] My Europe
receive people that are fleeing from war [applause] and we do it in solidarity, we do it
together, my Europe do not build walls! [...] So now it is time for Europe to stand up for humans’
inviolable value and equal rights, what we in declarations and agreements have sworn to defend, this is what
we have stood up for and this is what we stand up for here today. [...] But the most
important of all, still, is to be a buddy, a friend, to welcome people when they come [...] And
we will, dear friends, continue to be a country that carry solidarity as our main pride (Stefan Löfven,
“Refugees Welcome Manifestation”, 2015).
The European states including Sweden are democracies, hence the power over mortality is
supposed to reside with the citizens. So, when it comes to the question of who may live and who
may die in a refugee crisis there are people who have a definite answer, and the answer is refugees
welcome!
9
Unless there is a specific referen ce th e information and descriptions come from the stories of the interviewees,
puzzled together by the author. All translations from Swedish to English is made by the author.
214.2 PART 1: REFUGEES WELCOME TO MALMÖ IN THE FALL OF 2015
In this part the results from the thematic analysis based on interviews with ten volunteers active
in the civil society initiative Refugees Welcome to Malmö is presented, and every theme is introduced
with a description of how and why the theme got its name. The seven functions of civil society
will be used to explore Refugees Welcome to Malmö as a civil society actor, and the motivations,
experiences and choice to become a volunteer within this initiative will be connected to previous
research in accordance to its relevance.
4.2.1 AN OPPORTUNITY TO DO GOOD
When asking the interviewees why they came to be volunteers the theme ‘an opportunity to do
good’ was developed. ‘Good’ used in the theme and by the interviewees is the best translation for
the Swedish word nytta. ‘Att göra nytta’ [to do good] is connected to labour, to not be lazy and
waste your time, it is not about being a good person. The stories of the interviewees tell us that
when they saw an opportunity to help it was a spontaneous act rather than a planned one. In the
refugee reception some volunteers felt that they did something good by being there to welcome,
while others saw that their qualities and knowledge could do good.
On the evening of the 7 th of September Mesere walks down to Malmö Central Station with some
sandwiches, she had read of Facebook that some refugees were on their way, she says that:
If I have the possibility to help someone I do it, from the smallest to the largest. I do it
automatically, it is nothing that I am thinking about, if I can I will do it. It was not like I was
thinking and wondering ‘what should we do’, it was just to go there.
Steve calls himself a ‘internet-twitter-warrior’, he is the activist who on social media is fighting for
equality between women and men, LGBT rights and against the occupation of Gaza. So, for him
it was a natural step to become a volunteer:
Yes, I went down there because someone told me to go down to the Central Station since
they needed help, and when I got there they said that I should go down to Bike and Ride 10
and you know, it took a week [laughing] before I came home [...] it felt really good that you
could do something in real life, in real time, instead of just sitting on the internet.
Bike an d Ride is a garage for bicycles near the Central Station that was lent out to Refugees Welcome to Malmö. This is
10
where they had their distribution of clothes, menstrual articles, diapers, and teddy bears among other things.
22Ewa is also active on social media and felt, just like Steve, that it felt good to leave the couch and
do something more and join the work that she saw others doing. It all started when she read an
article about Refugees Welcome to Malmö, and she had heard her students talk about some list. By
searching on ‘Refugees Welcome’ on Facebook she found the list where you sign on different
tasks that are needed and got in contact with Petruska. Petruska followed Ewa to Djäknegatan
where Ewa started to volunteer with unpacking, sorting, and packing donated clothes.
It all started for Lasse when he felt that he wanted to do something and went through his
closet, drove down to Djäknegatan to donate the clothes and got the question if he would like to
become a volunteer. He says that he was thinking “well, why not, you could always try” and so he
wrote up his name:
... here offers [you] a possibility to like, directly like ‘sign up’, come down and help [clicks]
and tomorrow I’m there [...] I don’t go to a meeting and say what I think that someone else
should do or what we should do or something. I go down there and after three hours work, I
have helped people who need me.
Donation of clothing was Petruska’s way in to become a volunteer as well. One day she saw on
Facebook that there was a need for clothes “so I made a fast sweep in mine and my husband’s
closet and went down to the Central Station”. When she came back the day after with more
clothes that she had collected from family and neighbours Petruska noticed that the clothes from
yesterday were kept outside and it was bad weather, “it was incredibly messy and chaotic, and I
saw that among the clothes it was a lot was garbage as well which people just took the chance to
get rid of”. Petruska says that she has been a member of international organizations and
contributing with monthly donations for many years, but lately she had felt to do something
more active and more local, particularly when it comes to refugees:
So when, when this came up, when I suddenly saw a situation in front of me where it really
was a need for the expertise that I have, as a professional project leader, I felt that, it was like
coming to a table where I could do as much good as possible.
She started to look for the people who were in charge of the refugee reception at the Malmö
Central Station, and after a few days she found the small room in the basement of Bike and Ride
where Mesere and Alexandra and some others were in the act of founding the non-profit
association Refugees Welcome to Malmö (in order to become a legal entity with the ability to open up
a bank account) and Petruska offered them her help and together they became ‘the leadership’
23You can also read
